One of the most popular questions about travelling Europe we get asked is how much does it cost. We've decided that in the interest in helping others we'll publish our detailed trip statistics to show you how we did. We did this trip on what we perceived to be a tight budget - perhaps if you are retired then you'll want to do more or if you have more time you will want to do less miles, but with hindsight there is very little we would have changed about our trip. Money management was crucial. Because of our budget constraints we carefully monitored and recorded all of our expenditure to ensure that we weren't over budget.

First, some statistics from our trip!

We travelled 23,044 miles over a period of 334 days from 7th April 2011 until 6th March 2012. We passed through 21 countries (stopping in 18) consuming 3,805litres of Diesel from 62 fuel stations and 280 litres of LPG Gas. We paid 19 road tolls, 14 ferries, 5 vignettes and 4 tunnels.

We 'Wild Camped' for 219 nights (66%), stayed on Aires or other recognised motorhome parking areas for 45 nights (14%) and stayed on camp sites for 70nights (21% with 29 of those nights being in Morocco).

Food wise we visited 115 supermarkets or other food shops and ate out for usually for lunch but sometimes for tea 101 times.

Our average miles per day were 78 miles and our mode fuel consumption (taking into account number of miles travelled between the calculations and averaging that out) was 33.4MPG.

Adam drove for 170 days (80% of the driving)while Sophie drove for 19 days (10%) and we shared the driving on a further 20 days (10%). There were 123 days (36%) where we didn’t drive anywhere at all.

The maximum number of miles we drove in a day was 372 on the first day of our trip getting from Calais to Dummerlolhausen. The only other day where we exceeded 300 miles was Asiliah to Marrakesh in Morocco (365 miles). The minimum number of miles we did in a day was 2 miles (leaving one place and arriving to stay at another) from Aghios Konstantinon to Gytheio in Greece.

With views like this available for free why pay to stay on a camp site?

Totals

Ok, so enough beating about the bush! What was our grand total?

£9,570.19 or £28.83 per day

Or in other words, two people, a little over 11 months full board for £14.41 per person, per day. This is how we broke down and recorded our spending:

Overnight (5%): Cost of sites, aires or parking overnight where a cost applied.

Where the money went, 42% of our expenditure was on Diesel.

What is not included?

Items which we viewed as being outside of our living costs which are: Vehicle Insurance (£500), Vehicle Road Tax (£195), Travel Insurance (£200), Mobile Phone / 3G Internet (£180). We also didn’t include our ‘side trip’ to St Petersburg (£500) as we left the van in Helsinki and felt it would unfairly skew the results.

Comparing Countries
In the below table we have broken down our expenditure for all of the 18 countries that we stayed in. The biggest factor influencing costs was if we stayed on a camp site or not, which made expensive countries like Norway (where we only spent £2.78 a day on food over 4 weeks, but spent £0 on campsites) appear comparative to Latvia, where we opted to stay on camp sites because of a lack of wild camping opportunities. All of the figures below are laid bare for you to view and dissect and are of course only representative of what we chose to do on this trip and not necessarily of that country as a whole!

Click to enlarge and view a clearer version

So what's our strategy on keeping costs down?

Our next blog post, Europe on a Budget will be published shortly and a link will appear here!

Fascinating data. I was surprised to see that your fuel consumption came up to 42%. A very helpful blog. Well done. Treasure those bills: I keep some of ours (nice restaurants, days out) in a special box.Thank you.

Well impressed thank you. hope it encourages those who say "we can't afford it" to get out and see what they are all missing for less than it costs to stay at home! We're in an american rv, don't think i can better your fuel costs, but lovin every minute

Probably, the most useful, factual account of long term European touring by motorhome. A fascinating and impartial insight for those contemplating their own trip. Recommend reading whole blog for all the details. Well done Sophie & Adam!

Absolutely superb, thank you very much for breaking it all down in so much detail including the 'by country' breakdowns. These are really invaluable statistics and very much appreciated. Been following your blog for some time :0)

Wow, I love your site! We are planning a very similar trip to yours, and the budget is the hardest part. This is so helpful. I've bookmarked the site and will be back to read a LOT and probably ask some questions before we set off. Thanks again!

Hi Adam and Sophie, we met briefly in Tarragona, seems like such a long time ago. We are in France and get the ferry next week, after nearly 8 months away. We have really enjoyed reading your blog, and its has helped us in planning our next trip. Jo and Si

Thanks so much for your honesty - this is such a great help! My boyfriend and I are looking to spend 6 months in Europe next year and have been combing your site for tips! Im so excited to get on the road, thanks again, your budget will be a great help in our planning.

absolute brilliant guys...!!!! life is too short for the 9 to 5 what you have done is an inspiration and help. me and my wife 41 and 43 are planning doing this next year but was wondering to tighten the budget did you do any day work like strawberry picking grape crushing with your feet or farm work. very much interested in what you are doing and will be doing it our selves very soon xx

good job this give us a good starting point as we want to do fulltime as soon we retired. our budget will be low we may not travel that much in one year maybe in 5 or 10 years any way we will make records and try to beat that for fun of course. yes is always farm work and fruit picking if any one got some tip on this please let me know

SO stoked I found your blog through gonewiththewynns.com. Met them at a travel blogging conference and loved the idea. Never heard of you guys but now want to follow along. We originally drove 15,000 miles across Canada and USA in 2010 and want to do it again but in Europe/Asia.Will be revisiting the site a lot now :)CheersCole

Hi,Really like your info.One question however: Microsoft autoroute 2013 does not display all the pushpinsets correctly. Lidl and McDonalds are correct, but the rest of the pushpins are in a grid. Any idea how to get them at the correct location?

Hi Adam,Thx very much for the correct pushpinset for AR 2013.Can you point me in the right direction to get all the sets ready for AR2013?thx again and hope to meet you in some exotic eastern european location like Albania or the Rhodope mountains!

Me and my girlfriend are looking to go around europe in a van for about 3 months. I noticed you have listed 'wild camping' as about 80% of your accommodation.

I was hoping you could please advise on this as i have read places it is illegal in some european countries, did you 'wild camp' when it was illegal? did you get any fines? did you find it safe enough and free from harassment.

763 days to go before i take early retirement first plan is to travel europe 8000 mile route planned to which i am sure will change i will be 45 and my good lady 52 really looking forward to it and thank you for all your info ...all i have got to do now is buy a motorhome what a minefield i would like a 6-7 meter but the lady would like something closer to 20 meters so we can take all the worthless possesions that we are hoarding in the bricks and mortar ..oh well this will be the first of our discussions of many

Hi Adam and Sofie...you guys are great....thank you so much for your blog... the details the pictures as well the gold mine of information you share...Rita and I (JP) live in south africa but also have residency in bulgaria..We have been spending half the year every year in Bulgaria since 2011.we dream of the day we can start our mobile home travel in europe ...we will be purchasing our first motorhome this year around April...I am literaly gobbling you every word advise you put out there...amazing.. keep it up please....I truely hope to someday meet you on the road so I can buy you guys a couple of pints. Will let you you know...really enjoy all posts...blessings and safe travel to you.

Wauw! love your blogs! There are also other cheap ways! like Buy and Buy Back. A small Dutch company called Happy-Camper.eu is especialy for Australian, NS and Canadian people. we're the only ones who does it in NL "yet" we have a few Motorhomes which we rent out but a more fun way for us and for you guys is the buy and buy back programm it will keep the cost down and insurance and all struggles are no struggles no more. Contact us for more info@happy-camper.eu

Thanks for posting your travelogue. No one can beat a travel article based on experience.We live in Australia. We have car driven Western Europe, Morocco, Ireland and great Britain altogether over 100 days in the past. We have motor homed New Zealand and part of NSW. I understand Scandanavia is expensive so we will hire a motor home and wild camp. Your article gave us the confidence to try it.My husband drove from England to Kathmandu in 1967 over 6 months in a four wheel drive before he headed to Australia. I wished I knew him then to have traveled with him.Congratulations on a well written detailed travel article!